The present invention relates to circuit board design. More particularly, the present invention relates to improving circuit boards to improve electrical performance thereof.
Circuit boards, which include printed circuit boards or PCBs, are common in the industry for electrically connecting components in a single unit. The most common type of printed circuit board is made of a material referred to in the art as FR4. This type of circuit board is relatively inexpensive to manufacture. It is made up of a rectangular grid or cloth of fiberglass fibers that are typically bonded to a copper substrate using an epoxy resin. Also, the fiberglass cloth can be impregnated with the epoxy resin. A fire retardant (FR) is added to the board, so that the board may be subjected to high-heat environments (e.g., when soldering components to the board). Electrical conductors (e.g., made of copper) are deposited in or on either side of the board and transmit signals between components (e.g., integrated circuit chips) on the boards, sockets for the insertion of other circuit boards (e.g. a daughter card inserted into a motherboard), etc. In the art, the material used for FR4 circuit boards has been effective at reducing crosstalk between signal lines.
FR4 circuit boards are also used to transmit signals in differential point to point interfaces. In such an interface, two signal line traces are provided to transmit one data signal. A first one of the traces transmits a part of the data signal that is 180° out-of-phase with the other part of the data signal transmitted on the second one of the traces. At the receiving end of the two signal line traces, the two out-of-phase signals are differentiated so as to recreate the original data transmitted in the signals. Signal trace pairs are often used in bus architectures.
FR4 has been successfully used for the transmission of differential signals at current operating frequencies. As components, including processors, increase in operating frequency, problems may occur in the use of FR4 for the circuit board material. For example, as bus frequencies increase over 1 GHz (gigahertz or 1 billion cycles per second), differential to common mode conversion may become a problem for a signal trace pair. In this conversion, the phase difference between the first and second traces changes from the optimal 180° described above. If the phase difference drops below a certain threshold, the receiving device will be unable to differentiate the two signals to retrieve the original data signal. Though such conversion occurs in FR4 circuit boards, the level of conversion has not been a factor at lower frequencies. At higher frequencies, this conversion may become severe, negating the use of known FR4 circuit boards.
One solution to this problem is to replace the FR4 board with a different, and perhaps homogenous, material. Such boards are known in the art, but are generally more expensive than the common FR4 material.
In view of the above, there is a need for an improved circuit board material.